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Prison labor is legal under the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. [1] Prison labor in the U.S. generates significant economic output. [2] Incarcerated workers provide services valued at $9 billion annually and produce over $2 billion in goods.
Some prisons became quasi-factories, in the nineteenth century, many discussions focused on the issue of competition between free labour and prison labour. Prison work was temporarily prohibited during the French Revolution of 1848. Prison labour then specialised in the production of goods sold to government departments (and directly to prisons ...
Prison labour is often referred to as involuntary servitude. Prisoners are forced to work for free or for very little money while they carry out their time in the system. Jurisdictions
The criminologist Thorsten Sellin, in his book Slavery and the Penal System (1976), wrote that the sole purpose of convict leasing "was financial profit to the lessees who exploited the labor of the prisoners to the fullest, and to the government which sold the convicts to the lessees". [19]
Notable recipients of hard labour under British law include the prolific writer Oscar Wilde (after his conviction for gross indecency), imprisoned in Reading Gaol. Labour was sometimes useful. In Inveraray Jail from 1839 prisoners worked up to ten hours a day.
Paid prison labour is the participation of convicted prisoners in either voluntary or mandatory paid work programs. While in prison, inmates are expected to work in areas such as industry, institutional maintenance , service tasks and agriculture. [ 1 ]
The party purchasing their labor from the government generally does so at a steep discount from the cost of free labor. [2] This is the 13th Amendment that Abraham Lincoln signed. Louisiana State Penitentiary is the largest prison farm covering 18,000 acres (7,300 hectares); it is bordered on three sides by the Mississippi River. [3]
Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, or violence, including death or other forms of extreme hardship to either themselves or members of their families. [note 1]